


Elijah Has Been Dreaming of Stars

by cliffsofmemory



Category: Foundation - Isaac Asimov, Robot Series - Isaac Asimov
Genre: Agoraphobia, Fluff, Foundation Spoilers, M/M, Prelude to Foundation Spoilers, Sappy, Stargazing, Tea, my teeth fell out writing it please send help, this is the sappiest thing I have written in years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 18:18:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6868186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cliffsofmemory/pseuds/cliffsofmemory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daneel as Hummin uses his press credentials to take Elijah to explore places that most people on Trantor don’t get to see without good reason. He pulls this weight as often as possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elijah Has Been Dreaming of Stars

Hummin takes him to Upperside, once, to see the stars. Elijah got fairly used to seeing them out the window or in transit, after previously living on so many worlds that have, well, a sky. Now they’ve lived on Trantor for a few years without Elijah once visiting the open air. (Demerzel spends plenty of time Outside, walking the Imperial grounds.) Hummin proposes an article he knows his editor will eventually reject, and prepares for the trip while his proposal is still pending. He checks the meteorology reports from several (conflicting) sources the week leading up, interrogates his most trusted weather-news colleagues, and finally on the night they hoped for, he confirms that chances are good it will be clear.

They bring warm coats and boots; Daneel brings hot tea for Elijah. They climb out above the Streeling University dome, where they won’t feel terribly high above the planet’s surface. As they step out from the elevator, Elijah grabs Daneel’s hand and clutches tight. Daneel has already been watching him to anticipate any unexpected dizziness, but he finds Elijah’s face transfixed in awe up at the sky. It is indeed clear, almost perfectly so, and with no nearby lights around the dome, the stars cluster thick and bright. A faint, distant smile traces Elijah’s lips, and Daneel watches his eyes travel from constellation to constellation, following the whorls of star shapes and nebulas. An arm of the galaxy shows faintly in the western corner of the sky.

Elijah turns to Daneel, starting off with “Why don’t--” but he can’t miss the drunk-in-love look on Daneel’s face. “Daneel, you weren’t even looking at the sky!”

“I saw enough of it to acknowledge it. That is sufficient.” He smiles. “Whereas I have yet to see enough of your face.”

Elijah performs a facial expression which Daneel has insisted is unique to him, something between a scowl and a grin with the addition of a look in his eyes that Daneel has yet to adequately describe--something like love and reproach all in one. “You are the most hopeless romantic I know.”

“You have had a part in that development. Were you beginning to pose a question, Elijah?”

“Oh. Yes.” Elijah looks up again. “I don’t see a moon.”

“The moon we should see is in its new phase at the moment. Do you see the dark patch to the north?”

Elijah quickly spots it. “Hm.”

“Are you disappointed?”

Elijah turns toward him. “How can I be? My secret agent has brought me out under the stars.”

That tiny affectionate smile. “I am merely a journalist in this role, dear Elijah.” Daneel never stops feeling the need to correct Elijah on his hyperbole when the fake identities start to seem particularly dramatic.

“Right, right. ...Remember that time you slipped the guards at the microfarms to stop that robot from falling?”

“A tour guide, not guards,” but still Daneel nods, solemn. That had been a dangerous day. He’d almost given himself away with very little reason - with no human life in danger, he reminds himself. But one of the simpler model farming robots had been knocked off its path by an older man in his press tour group, visiting the yeast farms for a piece on a new strain, and it had been wobbling slightly as it left them. Right as their group had turned away, Daneel - Hummin - had realized that the robot was angling toward a walkway edge, at a corner right above a vat of yeast. He’d said nothing, merely dashed out from the middle of the group, jumped the three steps they’d just descended, and caught the robot by its arm as it slipped. He’d barely managed to make it before its slip from the walkway would have made him seem inhumanly strong as he caught and lifted it with one hand.

Elijah had heard the story in terse form that night. Daneel had returned home still a little unnerved, finishing a rundown of everything he had said to his colleagues afterward, trying to be sure none of them suspected him. Partly to help assure Daneel that his identity was safe, and partly to give himself the experience of seeing with his own eyes this move, Elijah asked Daneel to find a copy of the security footage and let him watch at home. So Hummin had gotten hold of the footage (“...to show my editor that I’m qualified to cover the fast-paced action stuff,” he’d joked to the farm’s foreman the next day). And Elijah had watched it. After a few views, he had promised that it looked perfectly human, but for a new opinion, they showed Dors. She had immediately corrected placement of Daneel’s footing in the catch. Elijah’d argued, saying a little awkwardness--and frankly he disputed the proposition that it was awkward--made Hummin’s catch more believable as merely human reflex.“You look like nothing more unusual than a very in-shape good Samaritan here.” And Daneel had smiled at him, having long ago read the rest of the book from which Elijah took his name, and accepted the assurance. Then Elijah watched the tape again, and asked if they were expected to return this copy; when he learned that it was not going to be missed, he had kept it. And rewatched it occasionally.

Elijah considers now, on a dome above Trantor, looking at a sky which likely fewer than a dozen other beings on the planet are seeing, how lucky he is to have a partner who could not only catch him in a blink but has, many times. “I’m proud of what you do, Daneel. Everywhere.”

They lay out the insulated blanket they’ve brought and settle down on their backs, sides pressed together and Daneel’s arm around Elijah. Every now and then, Elijah points up, murmurs a question, and smiles lazily as Daneel informs him about the star or nearby satellite he’s chosen. He has Daneel show him roughly where to look if they could see other planets they have visited. Daneel shows him the direction of Cinna, and Lije lifts a hand to squeeze Daneel’s own on his shoulder, the pride of their greatest achievement on that planet still warm.

Only once does Elijah grow quiet and a little stiff, begin to notice his latent agoraphobia rise. Before it gets far, he rolls onto his side to press his face into Daneel, the safety he denied himself once and has never felt inclined to reject again. He feels Daneel pull him in, just a little, and enclose him with both arms. He lets Daneel murmur into his hair, a steady stream: “You’re safe. I have you. You’re safe.”

After a few moments, he remembers to breathe, does so, and his next exhale brings a smile. As soon as he can, he lifts his face to Daneel, shows him the serenity returning. “Better,” he squeaks. And before Daneel can apologize for anything, he gusts, “This is an incredible night. I’m glad you brought me up.”

Daneel smiles faintly at him, smooths his hair, watches him for flickers of change. After a moment, he lets Elijah shift away to sit up, and at Elijah’s searching gaze, offers the thermos from his coat pocket. “Tea?”

Elijah takes it, opens the lid, pours a little into the built-in cup. Wrinkles his nose. “It’s not caffeinated, is it?”

“No, certainly not. We’re going back inside to bed soon.”

“Hm,” but Elijah sips the tea, still very warm. Daneel remains sprawled on his back at Elijah’s side, looking up. Elijah is grateful for this, an excuse to keep his eyes down for a while longer. He drinks in silence, a little half-smile softening him as he uses his free hand to trace Daneel’s face, his jaw, his ear. He runs his fingers through Daneel’s hair, from forehead to crown to neck, tickles his fingers under the thick, fluffed collar of the winter coat. And Elijah’s smile grows as he observes the dregs of Daneel’s concern fade into total bliss. He watches Daneel’s eyes flutter closed and is grateful his light touch can continue on muscle memory, because he finds himself utterly distracted by a feeling of love and joy rising up in him. The way the sight of Daneel’s comfort always does. He finds that this feeling - the sense of his great fortune yet again - never dulls. At quiet moments like this, he feels the entire world shrinking to enclose only himself and his incredible, inexplicable partner.

And then Daneel opens his eyes and lifts his hand to Elijah’s shoulder and pulls him, with the lightest insistence, down for another embrace, this time started with both of them feeling safe. And home. Daneel feels Elijah breathe in deeply and sigh. He feels the relaxed calm. Neither of them feel the slightest bit cold.

Eventually, they do give in to the call of enclosure, and Elijah stretches his back up and around as he helps Daneel fold up their now-damp blanket and close up the thermos. They signal for the elevator, and Daneel remembers to pull the blanket out of Elijah’s arms and squeeze it back into the satchel he’d brought it in before they step out into the view of a very sleepy University security guard. The shift change had apparently not involved informing her of their presence - because she startles to attention at her standing desk, cocks her head, eyes them both, and grins the beginning of a question.

Before she can speak it, Hummin pulls out his press badge and waves it in front of his own face, looking at Elijah with a weary “as always” grimace. He lets it stop in her view as he fixes her with the same bland glare. “Hummin, Chetter, _Trantor Tribune_ , and no, I didn’t see any more unidentified flying objects tonight above this sector than I have over the past few wasted evenings here or on any other dome.” He pauses, considers her wide eyes, and allows a smirk. “And if you find the idea of actual UFO existence intriguing, in an era in which anything Flying is also Identifiable, feel free to apply for a job and take on this extra project, because I have far better articles to chase.” He places a hand firmly at Elijah’s elbow and begins steering them toward the staircase to the university level. He looks back only once, and mutters to Elijah, “She looks bored again. We’re safe.” Elijah just gazes at him with that proud “my secret agent” grin.

They make it to Dors’ student apartment late, grateful for her early offer to let them crash if the evening keeps them out late. Daneel relays to her from the apartment lobby, so that she can come down to sign them in as her guests, since they are in no way affiliated with the University (and a press pass will do nothing to change that access level, thankfully). She arrives at the desk with a pale green Streeling U sweater on, something Elijah gave her on impulse last year upon her admittance to the Master’s program, and acknowledges them to the desk administrator as “my dads, visiting from another sector.” Which. Is true.

Elijah is very sleepy by the time they reach her door. He lets Daneel steer him inside, leans on his shoulder, and tries to aim for the nearest kitchen chair in her small space. Both Dors and Daneel maneuver him away from the chair and into Dors’ bedroom, where Daneel waits patiently with Elijah supported on his arm as Dors flutters around the bed, pulling piles of papers and discs into new piles on the floor and bookshelves. She pulls the blanket back with a flourish, and Daneel lets Elijah slide down onto the twin bed. She meets Daneel’s eyes over the bed and shares a nearly equal-sized version of his intense, protective love for this human nearly asleep between them.

When Daneel has finished making sure that Elijah is sleeping sound, he creeps out to join Dors where she’s waiting at the kitchen table, working on a paper. He sits quietly until she reaches a stopping point, and then she turns off her computer and looks at him.

“Good date?”

He nods.

“He wasn’t overwhelmed?”

“There was one difficult moment. I think it may have been brought on by lying still for so long looking up, in fact. But he passed through it quickly.”

“It’s good he has you,” she says, as she’s said to him in a hundred ways over so many years.

Daneel smiles, a habit now. “It’s good that I have him. And you. We’re so proud of you.”

They sit in quiet for a while. Then he asks her what she’s working on tonight. They talk about her classes. He answers some ancient history questions. She corrects him on some things he didn’t experience firsthand and hadn’t heard accurate news on, centuries ago. She tells him about some of her favorite classmates, complains about an unprepared professor. Updates him on the lives of her friends.

And then, very late in the night, Daneel begs leave of her to go lie down with Elijah again, to be there when he wakes up (and smile like they’ve both lost their minds, she knows). She practically pushes him out of the chair with her “of course, get out of here!” because this habit is nothing new. And she goes back to her computer while Daneel and Elijah continue to rest.

Elijah has been dreaming of stars, and Hummin’s conspiratorial smile shared in front of that security guard, and Daneel’s hand in his.


End file.
